Best storytellers in the industry?

[Master Chuuster]

So I've been playing Wolfenstein II recently, and I'm loving it. I'm at the part where

Spoiler

Blazco just go his new body

and I know opinion's usually split on this part, but I loved the way the game handled it.

It's ridiculously over the top, but it goes about the OTT-ness very confidently and very consistently. It's got excellent characters, great writing, great acting and voice acting, and the cutscenes are some of the best I've ever seen in a video game. Having playing TNO about 6 or 7 months ago and now playing this, I've become convinced that MachineGames is one of the best devs in this industry when it comes to storytelling (you're free to disagree, of course).

Which, of course, got me thinking about some of the other great storytellers in the industry, and wondering what ERA thinks about this as well. I think the likes of Naughty Dog, Kojima, and CDPR definitely qualify as well, and BioWare used to, not so long ago. Guerrilla Games really impressed me with Horizon: Zero Dawn, but I don't think one good game is enough for them to be looked at as one of the best- they're getting there, though.

Who, according to you, are the best storytellers in the industry?

 

[Durante]

MCA

To expand on that a bit, Chris "MCA" Avellone, lead writer and designer on Planescape: Torment, the only game to ever make me cry.

 

[Goney]

Obsidian

 

[Rogue Agent]

I think Chris Avellone is a brilliant storyteller.

 

[Deleted member 249]

My personal favorite in terms of interactive storytelling is From Software, who manage to build and tell compelling stories without relying on uninteractive exposition dumps, and tell stories leveraging the interactive strengths of gaming as a medium.

 

[Vault]

Chris Avellone he needs to come back and lead a project again

 

[ronabs]

Ken Levine

 

[Exentryk]

CDPR, Yoko Taro.

Haven't played any Naughty Dog shooter, even tho story focused games are right up my alley. Glad that GoW has melee combat so I'm all for that.

 

[Horror]

Obsidian

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Great answer.

 

[Ap3x]

Remedy! Their games might have their flaws, but I just love them.

 

[BGBW]

Peter Molyneux is great at telling tall stories.

 

[Master Chuuster]

Peter Molyneux is great at telling tall stories.

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The best

 

[hexanaut]

Rockstar, Remedy, CDPR, Ninja Theory, Fullbright, and whoever made Kentucky Route Zero.

 

[Deleted member 37233]

Nintendo! Obviously!

Joke aside, I think Giant Sparrow and Campo Santo are showing real talent in that regard with their first games.

 

[Zoantharia]

Koizumi is up there. Not even kidding. Link's Awakening, Majora's Mask, Rosalina's storybook.

 

[IronicSonic]

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios.

I had great time with Mass Effect 2, Alan Wake and The Last of Us too

 

[Lys Skygge]

Neil Druckman is definitely my favorite.

 

[Nintendo]

Naughty Dog, Rockstar, CDPR, Bioware(used to), and Kojima(except MGSV).

 

[Demolition_Human]

Amy Hennig, for Legacy of Kain.

 

[VileZero]

Having just recently played through the first four Uncharted games, and now currently deep into The Last Of Us, I'd say that Naughty Dog ranks as one of the best.

 

[Asbsand]

In order:

1. Shu Takumi (Capcom)
2. Naughty Dog (Amy and Neil)
3. Chris Avellone
4. BioWare (mainly Patrick Weekes, Drew K, Chris L'Etoile and David Gaider)
5. Sebastian Stepien (CDProjekt)
6. David Cage
7. Rika Suzuki (formerly CING)
8. Koizumi from Nintendo
9. Yoko Taro
10. SWERY

Authors that are too incoherent don't fit except David Cage because Heavy Rain has merit.

 

[Bioshocker]

Neil Druckman and Ken Levine.

 

[DonB(qv.YankeeTeachings)]

CDPR, Yoko Taro.

Haven't played any Naughty Dog shooter, even tho story focused games are right up my alley. Glad that GoW has melee combat so I'm all for that.

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Yup, these two are head and shoulders above everyone else right now, at least in big budget space.

Mind you, it was really Witcher 3 that elevated CDPR there for me, so we'll see if they can stay at that level. The line writing in Witcher 3 is better than even most prestige TV I'd say, and makes other lauded games like Uncharted look like CW-level amateur hour (though I'll admit TLoU comes a bit closer at times). And when compared to other sprawling open world games, it's not even a contest.

And Taro's scenarios are just bananas, somehow walking the tightrope between absurd, heavy handed, and sublime. No one else (again in big budget space) is so effectively using the medium to scaffold story telling.

 

[Strings]

Yasumi Matsuno is probably my favourite storyteller in the industry. Tactics Ogre, FFT, Vagrant Story...

 

[Deleted member 249]

Nintendo! Obviously!

Joke aside, I think Giant Sparrow and Campo Santo are showing real talent in that regard with their first games.

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Nintendo actually can be pretty good at telling stories, they just choose not to most of the times...

 

[Trode]

Yasumi Matsuno and Yuji Horii are masterful storytellers.

 

[Master Chuuster]

Nintendo actually can be pretty good at telling stories, they just choose not to most of the times...

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True. BotW had a handful of really good cutscenes.

 

[misho8723]

In my opinion the best are Obsidian.. and then CD Projekt RED..

 

[Silky]

In order:

1. Shu Takumi (Capcom)
2. Naughty Dog (Amy and Neil)
3. Chris Avellone
4. BioWare (mainly Patrick Weekes, Drew K, Chris L'Etoile and David Gaider)
5. Sebastian Stepien (CDProjekt)
6. David Cage
7. Rika Suzuki (formerly CING)
8. Koizumi from Nintendo
9. Yoko Taro
10. SWERY

Authors that are too incoherent don't fit except David Cage because Heavy Rain has merit.

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Other than the CDProjekt role this is the best list I've seen. Would probably put ND under Avellone though.

I would also include Harvey Smith of Arkane.

 

[Deleted member 9840]

Ken Levine.

 

[J 0 E]

Naughty Dog

 

[Asbsand]

Other than the CDProjekt role this is the best list I've seen. Would probably put ND under Avellone though.

I would also include Harvey Smith of Arkane.

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You can argue the placement of Stepien with me (he is Lead on Witcher 2) but he has to stay there. The cause and effect including the branching decisions in Witcher 2 are very intelligently laid out most of the time with depth and consistency of lore, characters and plot

 

[Brucey]

My boy ND from ND. I also think Sean Vanaman from Campo Santo, and formerly Telltale, is really great at writing honest dialogue that feels natural.

 

[Bosh]

Suda51
Kojima
Druckman

 

[Opa-Pa]

Yoko Taro (Drakengard, Nier), Shu Takumi (Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick), Satomi Tadashi (Persona 1 and 2) and Shigesato Itoi (Mother/Earthbound) for me.

I especially like Taro's skill at telling stories about the setting and conflict rather than the characters themselves, like in Automata. But for overall storytelling my favorite is probably Itoi, although I'm not sure if he counts as part of the industry proper.

Also I know this one bothers people for some reason, but I genuinely think Miyazaki and co at From are among the best at "subtle storytelling". Dark Souls was impressive but Bloodborne was outstanding in this regard.

 

[Escaflow]

Nier Automata and Persona 5 have better stories than Horizon , at least for me . Funny that I play them in this order , HZD > Nier Automata > Persona 5 , and the stories kept getting better and better .

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

I mean...he has been mentioned a bunch of times already but still....Avellone of course
The man is by far the best writer in the gaming industry

 

[Soundwind]

i wouldn't say he is the very best, but alot of people tend to give Dan Houser sh*t, even though i would say, without any issue, that he is one of the best writers within the game industry

 

[Deleted member 2145]

Retro Studios and From Software

the way they can convey narrative through the environments and scenarios rather than traditional storytelling methods is something else

 

[The Shape]

MCA

To expand on that a bit, Chris "MCA" Avellone, lead writer and designer on Planescape: Torment, the only game to ever make me cry.

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I've always wanted to play this game. Can you tell me if it has audio in dialogues or it's just text?

Also, Neil Druckmann and Kojima made some of my favorite stories in games.

 

[Deleted member 24118]

Failbetter Games.

 

[Enrico25]

Kotaro Uchikoshi (Zero Escape)

Kazutaka Kodaka (Danganronpa)

 

[Deleted member 5764]

Naughty Dog and CD Projekt Red are among my absolute favorites. Naughty Dog's performance capture is leaps and bounds above the rest of the competition. CDPR does an incredible job with world building.

 

[Durante]

I've always wanted to play this game. Can you tell me if it has audio in dialogues or it's just text?

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It only has a few voiced lines, used to establish key characters and party members. The vast majority is writing only -- what's there is really good though.

 

[Venom]

Neil Druckman
Bruce Straley
Amy Hennig
Hideo Kojima
Tomokazu Fukushima
Rhianna Pratchett
Ken Levine
Yoko Taro

The 15 writers for the Witcher 3!
The writers for EGTTR, Firewatch, WRoEF, TVoEC.
There's quite a few more but these just off the top of my head.

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

I've always wanted to play this game. Can you tell me if it has audio in dialogues or it's just text?

Also, Neil Druckmann and Kojima made some of my favorite stories in games.

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It's mostly text but there is so much dialogue that it would bankrupt a company if they tried to hire voice actors for everybody.
You can spend minutes talking to a random NPC without getting a quest or in-game reward.

 

[Vulcano's Assistant]

I have a soft spot for Erik Wolpaw. Love the humor and the stories both.

 

[Enduin]

I would say a lot of smaller/indie devs are the best situated to tell great stories as they are in a position to tell a more straightforward story that doesn't get too bloated as many larger games tend to and they are in a position to experiment more freely with different kinds of stories, presentations and gameplay systems that compliment that experience. What Remains of Edith Fitch, Her Story, To the Moon, Gone Home, Firewatch, Oxenfree, Night in the Woods and many more are much more geared towards succinct, but powerful story telling and experiences that can spend more time in the mundane and smaller moments that can really drive home relationships and emotions without needing juggle combat and the disconnect that can arise in that.

Not that you can't tell a good story with lots of combat or other extraneous gameplay elements, but it can be a challenge depending on how they are presented and work together to compliment the narrative. Plenty of games do tell very wonderful stories through their gameplay or in large part supported by it. Though I would argue again that is often sometimes more easily achieved by indie devs or medium to smaller budget games that have more freedom to experiment.

There are certainly some genres that have excelled for a while over others to tell good stories like Adventure games, RPGs and certain Action Adventure games. The rise of TellTale style games as well have been successful, some more than others.

 

[J 0 E]

In order:

1. Shu Takumi (Capcom)
2. Naughty Dog (Amy and Neil)
3. Chris Avellone
4. BioWare (mainly Patrick Weekes, Drew K, Chris L'Etoile and David Gaider)
5. Sebastian Stepien (CDProjekt)
6. David Cage
7. Rika Suzuki (formerly CING)
8. Koizumi from Nintendo
9. Yoko Taro
10. SWERY

Authors that are too incoherent don't fit except David Cage because Heavy Rain has merit.

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In what parallel dimension has Koizumi (and Nintendo as a whole for that matter) belonged to a list of storytellers??

 

[osnameless]

I know they have been getting bad press for being incredibly stale, but I still think Telltale is incredible at introducing characters and tailoring dialogue.

Their stories are always enjoyable and stimulating enough to carry you through out a five-episode story.

They are still one of the best in writing dialogue in video games, which is something rare and I never understood why.

To this day, if I want to have some sort of interactive story with a good dialogue, they are my go-to choice.